The Research Whispererhttps://researchwhisperer.org
Just like the Thesis Whisperer - but with more moneyFri, 17 May 2019 04:58:26 +0000en
hourly
1 http://wordpress.com/https://secure.gravatar.com/blavatar/6112b0c6eff7b4afee18608a9541af89?s=96&d=https%3A%2F%2Fs0.wp.com%2Fi%2Fbuttonw-com.pngThe Research Whispererhttps://researchwhisperer.org
The Emerging Impact Landscapehttps://researchwhisperer.org/2019/05/21/the-emerging-impact-landscape/
https://researchwhisperer.org/2019/05/21/the-emerging-impact-landscape/#respondMon, 20 May 2019 22:00:33 +0000http://researchwhisperer.org/?p=9317Wade Kelly is the Senior Coordinator, Research Impact, at La Trobe University, in Melbourne, Australia.

Wade’s PhD research focused on how and why universities and academics engage with communities.

There’s considerable confusion about what ‘impact’ is, and this is no surprise given that it’s a term that’s used for so many things in the contemporary research space.

For my research, I’ve had many, many conversations with people across higher education in Australia and Canada at all career levels (research higher degree students, Early Career Researchers, Mid Career Researchers). Alongside the confusion about what impact is is what impact means (and will mean) to academics.

The following primer is a brief history of the impact landscape, an exploration of some of the trends in higher education, and some things to consider as you start your ‘impact journey.’

So, let’s start by clarifying some of the many meanings of impact. I find it easiest to consider impact as happening either inside (internal) or outside (external) of academia.

Internal impact are the kinds of impacts that academics have been talking about, tracking, and trying to increase for years. These impacts are front of mind for academics as they’re often related to annual reviews, promotion and tenure. These types of impacts are also often referred to as academic or research impact. Generally, if you see a university library advertising a session on increasing your impact, this is what they’re discussing.

Increasingly, when university administrations ‘discuss’ impact, they are talking about the impact academic research has outside of the academy, or external impact. This type of impact may be on politics, health, technology, the economy, law, culture, society or the environment.

Examples of external impacts (as a result of research):

Improved health outcomes

Increased agricultural yield or resiliency

Enriched safety/security standards

Decreased cost or increased revenue

Transformed education practices (e.g., curriculum)

Increased public safety/national defence

Integration of research recommendations into regulatory frameworks, policy, or law

Adoption of methods to improve tracking/measuring

Decreasing disease prevalence

Implemented sustainability practices

Put simply:

Getting a journal article published is internal impact.Having that research create change in the world, is external impact.

The ‘impact agenda’ has been spurred on by several factors, but the most dominant has taken the form of institutional assessments. In an increasingly ‘accountability’ driven higher education space, such assessments have been adopted to provide tracking of and justification for the investment of public money in university-based research. The history of impact goes back to the early 2000s with various schemes and pilots having been run along the way. The notion of ‘Impact’ (external) really took hold in 2014 when the Research Excellence Framework (REF) in the UK introduced an impact assessment. The REF 2021 will also have an impact component. Impact is not going away.

In Australia, the Engagement and Impact (EI) Assessment was run in 2018 as part of the Excellence in Research Australia (ERA) process, by the Australian Research Council (ARC). Results were released at the end of March. Each university in Australia submitted case studies of research in each Field of Research (FoR code, which is a broad disciplinary categorisation) to be assessed in engagement, impact, and approach to impact. Each submission was scored by a panel of experts as either low, medium, or high. If you were at a university that did not have philosophy department, you would not submit a case study for FoR 22 (Philosophy and Religious Studies), but if you did have a philosophy department you were expected to submit (with a few exceptions).

To complicate things even further, there is retrospective and prospective impact. Retrospective impact is the impact your research has already had (or is having). Prospective impact is the impact that you would like — or hope — your research to have. I recently heard impact described in a meeting as ‘big I impact’ and ‘little i impact.’ The former being the big institutional assessments (REF, EI) that only a few high performing researchers will be involved with. Whereas “small i impact” is how each individual researcher will consider how impact is incorporated into their research plans, evidenced, and reported on. The national interest test may, for example, be considered ‘small i impact,’ as the onus sits on the individual researcher to account for how the research will make an impact that benefits the interests of the nation. Increasingly, researchers are being required to account for the expected impact of research through impact statements on grant applications.

Some universities have recognised the need to resource external impact more fully in response to the institutional impact assessments and an increased focus on impacts in grants. Universities have hired writers to assist with impact statements, communications experts to assist with building academic profiles, knowledge mobilisation specialists, and a full complement of expertise to meet their local needs. Other universities, have been unresponsive, perhaps conceiving of impact as an academic fad. In the UK funding is attached to impact through the REF. In Australia, the Engagement and Impact Assessment is not, at this point, related to funding. Resourcing will likely be dictated by the trajectory impact takes in the coming years.

It is important to note that this isn’t a settled space. Our understandings of how to account for the impact of academic research in society is still evolving, and along with that, our language to describe it. For example, because the REF and EI utilised a case study approach, those supporting and promoting impact might avoid quantitative words such as ‘measures,’ and instead adopt ‘indicators.’

It is clear that impact is not just coming, it is here. Knowing how to talk about impact and chart pathways to impact — the various engagements along the way that will aid research being taken up — will become increasingly critical for academics. We have been talking about internal impact for years but being able to articulate external impact will be increasingly important for academics’ success.

I’ve recently started at a new university. This is a good thing. It was time that I moved on, and I’m going to learn a huge amount in my new role. My new manager is amazing, and the team are excellent.

However, it is also a little bit odd. I’ve gone from being the person who knows everything to the person who knows nothing. Literally, nothing. Someone had to show me how to book a room. I don’t know how the systems work. I don’t know how finance works. I don’t know how HR works. I didn’t even know how the microwave worked (sorted this one out by myself, thankfully).

Some of these (photocopier, microwave) are mundane things, to be expected with a new environment. Some are a result of moving organisations – each university has its own way of doing things. In my old role, if I didn’t know how something worked, at least I knew who to ask. In my new role, I know almost no one. In one stroke, I’ve left behind a network that I’d built up over years. I have to build a whole new network (and I’m pretty terrible at the ‘names and faces’ thing).

Because of this, I’m keen to impress. There is so much that I don’t know, I’m trying extra hard when I do know something. I’m that kid in the class with their hand in the air, “Pick me, pick me!”. So keen to impress. So desperately keen. So desperate.

That means that I’m pouring myself into some tasks boots and all, and scrabbling to get other things done. I know that I should just be doing all the work that needs to be done, and absorbing new knowledge as I go. I should be easing into the role. But that is hard.

Along side the not knowing and the keenness is the fear. While my role is very similar to my old one, there are also some aspects that are new. I’m doing post-award work that I haven’t done before. I’m working on bids that are worth a lot more than I am used to. This makes me afraid – the discomforting fear of uncertainty, and the paralyzing fear of making a mistake. With each scary new task, I need to pull up my boots and get stuck in, pushing back against the fear. That means that I’m using a lot more energy than in my old job. In my old job, I could coast.

I also have a nagging fear that I’ll be found out, and that people will discover that I don’t really know everything. It doesn’t matter that I was chosen for my skills and experience. It doesn’t matter that they are happy to help me get up to speed. The impostor syndrome is strong in this one.

Intellectually, I understand that this is just what happens with a new job. There is inevitably a period of adjustment. [Full disclosure – as I write this, I’ve been in my new role exactly nine working days.] I understand that this will settle down but, right now, it is weird. I’m not used to being inside my head so much.

Don’t get me wrong – my new employer has been marvelous. There is a clear process for setting up new employees, and the team are all too ready to help. I’m just not used to needing to be helped.

Literally everyone that I’ve spoken to has sought to reassure me. They can see that my concerns are unfounded. I can see that too, at an intellectual level, but in my gut (where it counts), it’s still weird.

So, my heart goes out to those people who experience this feeling on a regular basis. If you are paid by the hour or working on short term contracts, this is how you feel on a regular basis, moving from job to job, from university to university. This is your life. Kudos to you when you have to deal with a whole new system every semester, every year, as you move to a new role in a new organisation.

It doesn’t matter if you love your work. It doesn’t matter if the work is fascinating or the students are inspirational. There is still a strong sense of dislocation that comes with having to navigate a new pay system, reporting system, or library system. Even when people are really nice, there is an initial sense of isolation, as well as the slow process of building a working network.

At least all the systems that I’m working with are the same. If you are working across institutions, there are two new systems to learn, for everything. Each of them maddeningly similar, each of them frustratingly different.

My partner works on multiple projects at once. By definition, this means that she is part time on all of them. However, her employing institutions assume that the majority of employees are full time. At least, that is their assumption when it comes to mandatory training and induction. Why do people need to do mandatory training modules every time they start a new contract, even though it may be less than 12 months since their last contract? Why do they need to attend a full day induction when they are working two days a week for a six-month project? Why not build systems for part-time temporary employees? Why not give more people full time jobs?

So, if you are part time, sessional, casual, short term, adjunct or otherwise changing jobs on a regular basis, you have my respect. The overhead involved in changing jobs is considerable. It isn’t easy, and it is a significant load on top of the work that you are ostensibly paid to do. I understand that, and I hope that this helps the people around you understand it, too.

]]>https://researchwhisperer.org/2019/05/14/im-new/feed/23jod999Learning to be a co-authorhttps://researchwhisperer.org/2019/05/07/learning-to-be-a-co-author/
https://researchwhisperer.org/2019/05/07/learning-to-be-a-co-author/#commentsMon, 06 May 2019 22:00:49 +0000http://researchwhisperer.org/?p=9296Dr Katherine Firth is a Lecturer at La Trobe University. Her PhD was on collaboration in writing.

Her recent book How to Fix your Academic Writing Trouble was co-authored with Inger Mewburn and Shaun Lehmann. She has collaborated on academic books and journal articles, and is currently working on three book projects with three different teams.

Co-authoring can be very different for researchers from different disciplines.

In the social sciences and the sciences, for example, co-authored articles have become the norm over the last few decades. My academic background is in English Literature, where we do not usually write collaboratively (Leane, Fletcher and Garg, 2019, Nyhan and Duke-Williams, 2014). Publishing a collaborative article or book can still be a career limiting move in the Humanities where single authorship is the norm.

As an early career researcher, I tried to keep publishing in the traditional ways, what is sometimes called ‘lone wolf’ scholarship (as in this previous Research Whisperer post ). It is pretty tough and solitary out there. You travel to the library or archives on your own, you read alone, you write alone, you edit alone. You might eventually get to work with a Research Assistant, but their intellectual contribution to the work is typically small: transcribing, fixing references, fact checking, copy editing (in other words, work that doesn’t merit co-authorship). You might go to conferences and present a paper on your work to build an audience and get feedback, but there’s a still a gap between what you present at a conference, and whether anyone actually wants to publish the finished article. Often, the only feedback you get is from peer reviewers.

Slowly, it became clear that I wasn’t going to have a traditional academic pathway with the expected h-indexes and annual publications, yet I still have things to say. And books and articles are still the ways I want to say them.

So, I have crossed over to the dark side and started writing collaboratively, and I’m here to tell you it’s great!

Below are 10 things I learned about being a co-author, including tips about teams, time management, values and the writing process. I’ve found these are essential, whether I see my collaborators every day, or if we live on other sides of the world.

Top tips for co-authorship:

1. Have a lead author who is responsible for the project management aspects like setting internal deadlines and negotiating with the publisher.

Getting something ready for publication means more than just writing good words. It helps to know whose job it is to keep an eye on the writing schedule, write the reply to emails from your editor, and convene your regular writers’ meetings. In my experience, this person is also usually the first author.

2. Be clear about what every person’s job is.

Which chapters or sections are you responsible for writing? What will you be responsible for when it comes to editing? Clarity about everyone’s job in the project helps you be sure the work is allocated in a fair and practical way, and makes it easier to get on with your to-do list. It will probably get messier at the end, but it should be clear at the beginning!

3. Meet regularly – either in person or via a video chat program like Skype or Zoom.

In our collaborations, we keep up regularly in a whole host of ways: tagging each other in #amwriting Twitter or Insta posts, SMS messages, email, going to Shut Up and Write together, or grabbing a coffee. But the monthly scheduled meeting is the most effective for being accountable, getting through a lot of material, and for negotiating.

I also use our regular meetings as mini-deadlines. Even if I haven’t written anything all month, an upcoming meeting makes me produce something. Maybe it’s just a last-minute first draft, but all those last-minute first drafts add up faster than you think.

4. Encourage each other.

When you are having a good day, or a bad day, your collaborators should be your biggest cheer squad. It really does help the writing!

5. Stay in contact if you get sick, are falling behind, or finding something hard.

A publication is a long-term project and lots of other things can happen in your work, your life, and your writing pipeline. Everyone understands that you might need to make adjustments. If you are communicating, the team can find a way to get back on track.

6. Try to work with compatible people.

There needs to be a lot of trust in any team, especially if you are working remotely and only checking in every month or two. I write with people I have worked with before (whether it’s through teaching, being on committees, or smaller writing projects like blog posts). I already know we can be compatible, so we can then work through any challenges or disagreements together!

7. Working with other people means they won’t always do things the way you would.

This is obvious, but it can also be a challenge if you are used to being a lone wolf. Most of the time, the differences help the writing to be richer, smarter, and speak to a wider audience.

8. Stand up for what you believe in.

I have become a much better writer for being challenged to rise up to other people’s social, aesthetic and intellectual values. Whether you love gender-neutral pronouns, Derrida, or lower prices for graduate students…make that case. That said, I should also say that you won’t always win. My Oxford comma love regularly gets voted down.

9. Share early drafts.

It can be a challenge to go from only ever sharing submittable work to sharing a second draft. It’s much easier to write together, in terms of tone, content and approach, if you are reading each other’s work before it’s too polished.

10. Edit other people’s work in stages.

When I edit my own work, I’m often rewriting paragraphs, changing individual words, checking spelling, and rethinking concepts … all at once. This is messy and unhelpful when other people do it.

When someone else is giving feedback on my early drafts, it helps if they keep their feedback high level, about the direction of the section and the work as a whole. When they are giving feedback on very late drafts, it helps if they keep their feedback on small details like sentence structure.

———————–

Co-authoring felt scary when I started because I had to make myself vulnerable and accountable to my collaborators. But, as we became a writing team, I realised that this was one of the most effective, affirming, and intellectually robust ways I had ever worked.

If you can find a writing team that communicates, is fair, and does the work, I’d strongly encourage you to have a go.

]]>https://researchwhisperer.org/2019/05/07/learning-to-be-a-co-author/feed/1researchwhisperGoing freelancehttps://researchwhisperer.org/2019/04/30/going-freelance/
https://researchwhisperer.org/2019/04/30/going-freelance/#commentsMon, 29 Apr 2019 22:00:31 +0000http://researchwhisperer.org/?p=9281Dr Dean Chan is a research development consultant based in Perth, Western Australia. He has been working as a freelance consultant on a full-time basis since 2014.

Prior to this, Dean had worked as a teaching and research academic in the Australian higher education sector for almost 20 years, including appointments as Senior Lecturer in Visualisation Technologies and Digital Media at Curtin University (2013-2014), Senior Lecturer in Digital Communication at University of Wollongong (2011-2013), Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Asian Digital Media at Edith Cowan University (2004-2007), and Lecturer in Art Theory and Visual Culture at Edith Cowan University (1999-2011).

Photo by Dean Chan | All rights reserved.

I happily resigned from a continuing academic position five years ago.

After almost twenty years in various teaching and research positions within the humanities and creative arts, I needed a change. I had enjoyed a great career, exceeded all my research and publication goals, and taught thousands of students. It seemed churlish to continue hogging a seat at the table when I no longer wished to be there. It was time for me to go.

But not completely away.

Road to Freelancing

In 2014, I started freelance consulting on a full-time basis. For both practical and tactical reasons, I remained within the orbit of academia. I wanted to focus on research development opportunities and deploy my training, expertise and networks as leverage while maintaining an affiliation with this intellectual and pedagogical space.

My consultancy had modest beginnings. I picked up a handful of hours doing miscellaneous research support work at a local Western Australian university. My initial duties included writing the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) research statements for practice-led research outputs and proofreading postgraduate theses.

Within a few years, my consultancy grew to encompass a mix of high level research administration work (including taking on the role of Discipline Champion of creative arts and writing for a local university’s ERA 2015 submission and preparing the portfolios for assessment); research development support at faculty and school levels (where I advised on several successfully funded grant applications including one ARC Linkage and two Discovery projects); and research project management (including serving as the project manager for three years on a transnational ARC Discovery project).

My editorial services also diversified. I worked for a research centre as the managing editor overseeing the publication of a journal double issue. In addition, I started to freelance as a publication coach, overseeing over a dozen articles and chapters from early draft through to eventual publication.

My prior track record in research, publication and administration facilitated my entry into this eclectic range of consultancy work. I targeted a selected range of research development and support work—basically, the types of work that I enjoy doing and reckon I am rather good at. Additionally, I accepted some jobs not only for the unique challenges they presented, but also in order to strategically include that work diversity in my CV and maximise future opportunities for this jobbing freelancer.

There are, of course, many types of consultants and equally as many diverse routes to becoming a freelance consultant. I have charted only one possible pathway, one which I partly curated and partly fell into, one that sparks joy (!) for me.

Lessons Learned

My freelance work over the past five years has been a bricolage of one-off editing jobs, casual work and short term contracts.

Technically speaking, I combine freelance and contract work, though I primarily self-identify as a freelancer. My most substantial contract in the past five years was a one-year fixed term contract for 15 hours per week. Others were for considerably less; shorter hours, fewer weeks and lower pay.

Nevertheless, for several years my assorted contracts at a single institution amounted to 37.5 hours paid work per week; in fact, I was not allowed by Human Resources to undertake additional hours and consequently I had to negotiate with my various line managers to revise my allocated hours and pay levels.

I did not have to apply for any of these jobs, too, which affirms for me the importance of having good personal and professional networks. Indeed, in most cases, I was approached directly by the managers or chief investigators of the projects in question.

Such institutionally based contract work can be rewarding intellectually—and financially.

I am paid award rates for the different types of work I do. Equally important, such university contracts generally allow my superannuation account to be topped up. At the same time, however, many other work entitlements like paid leave are among the first things to go when freelancing including on most university casual contracts.

I am admittedly still learning how to negotiate these myriad complexities. Nevertheless, I feel that I am appropriately remunerated for the type and amount of work that I do, so I have no complaints.

Means and Modes

This personal account has outlined my means of arrival and mode of practice in this chosen profession.

So, is this a viable mid to late career pathway?

I would like to think so. Today, I regard myself primarily as a research facilitator and my role is to help others achieve their research goals. The services that I offer tap into two decades of professional experience in the field, so in many respects this is an evolution rather than a repudiation of a former career.

In more abstract terms, I relish the autonomy and flexibility of freelancing. I also happen to enjoy the thrill of the chase in pursuing and securing a job, and the satisfaction in achieving the targeted outcomes for the client.

However, I might not have chosen this pathway if I had family or dependents to support. Or if I had to pay off a mortgage. Or if I did not already have decent superannuation and personal savings to bolster this calculated leap of faith.

There undoubtedly are other successful freelancers with families, mortgages and savings; but I am not in a position to ruminate on their professional means and modes. Truth be told, had my personal circumstances been different, I may have reconsidered my options. I might have planned this present incarnation only as a short term solution, or perhaps as a strategic stepping stone, especially if I was an early career professional.

All I can say with absolute certainty right now is that, as a freelancer, I have never felt happier and more fulfilled in my professional life. And that’s good enough for me.

Recently, I read a draft grant application that included an allowance for dinner for the industry advisory group. I nixed it.

I explained to the applicant that, while it may technically be an allowable budget item, most reviewers of that funding scheme would see it as an extravagance.

This led to a discussion of how she was going to run her industry advisory group. They were going to meet three or four times a year, probably over dinner, to get an update on the project and provide advice and feedback. Essentially, it was a dinner party with a focus on her research.

That made sense to me. If you want to create your own industry advisory group, create a good dinner party. Invite people that you would be interested in having dinner with, and that you think would be interested in meeting one another. Make it diverse enough to keep the conversation flowing, but not so diverse that it is divisive. Talk about the things that you passionate about. Disagree, and agree to disagree. Build trust relationships.

If it turns out that the best way to do this is to have a dinner party, so be it.

One of the cleverest researchers I know built her own industry advisory group, and I’ve always thought that it was something that more researchers should do. She worked in a very applied field, and she always kept her eye out for people who were interested in new ideas and in building the industry into the future.

Three or four times a year, she would invite these people to a meeting at the university. She would talk about new trends in research that she thought might be interesting or useful to them. She would listen very hard to how they reacted, and what they had to say. Every once in a while, she would invite some of them to partner with her on funding applications for projects that they were particularly interested in.

Some of these people were competitors with each other, but they weren’t being competitors when they were meeting with her. The university provided a neutral space where they could put aside their industrial rivalry for an hour or two. They found that it was a valuable thing to do because it provided them with new ideas. It gave them a chance to lift their eyes from the day-to-day and think about bigger things. It provided a little networking space of their own. After all, she had picked them because they were interested in the future of their industry. That meant that they not only had a similar backgrounds, but also similar mindsets.

In general, industry advisory members contribute their time because they value the relationship. They don’t need to be paid in cash – they see value in the activity in and of itself.

How this might work for you

The nice thing about building your own industry advisory group is that you don’t need to be a senior researcher to do it. You don’t need much in the way of resources or funding. You don’t need much of anything really, except a group of like-minded individuals and the back room at a pub. If it is a pleasurable activity, and everybody sees value in doing it, then it doesn’t need special funding or a special venue. It just needs to happen wherever everybody is most comfortable, with everybody paying their own way.

The people that you invite onto your industry advisory group should be people that you like and trust, and want to spend more time with. They might be people that you went through university with, or people that you have met through your own social network. They might be past students, or people that you think would make great PhD students in the future. They could, in fact, be anybody, as long as they share a passion for your particular research topic, and you would be willing to have dinner with them, or a beer, or a coffee, or a breakfast – whatever works for you and the group.

One key idea is to eliminate the cliche that most people think about when they think of an industry event: high-powered people gathering at the university to discuss The Future. I don’t know about you, but the meeting rooms at my university are the least appealing places imaginable to hold an intriguing soirée. Make it relaxed. Make it fun.

If it is a pleasurable activity, it has much more chance of becoming self-sustaining. You will know that it is working if you find yourself lost in the flow of conversation, talking about ideas simply for the pleasure of it. If people have a good time, they will want to come again, simply because they have had a good time. You will be willing to put the time in because you had fun doing it last time.

What’s your industry?

There are different ways to define what your ‘industry’ might be. It could be where your students get jobs. It could be people that you are trying to influence. It might be members of the public who are interested in your topic. It could be the readers of your blog, or members of your Facebook group. In essence, it is people who you want to connect with, who are not themselves academics in your discipline. There is nothing wrong with meeting up with a bunch of academics in your area – it’s just that it would be a research colloquium, not an industry group.

I’m an administrator at a university. My job is to help people get funding for their research. As such, my industry is academia (which means that the next bit gets a little bit meta). My personal industry group consists of four or five colleagues that I met while working at RMIT. We liked to hang out together, and we all thought that the others were doing interesting things. Some of us were administrators, some of us were academics, some of us have moved between the two. We were all interested in the idea of making universities better (or at least making them less worse), and we continue to believe in that ideal. We come from different disciplines and we are at different life stages. Over time, we have ended up working at different universities in different States, but we still get together at least once a year (more if we happen to be at the same event). We don’t really think of ourselves as an industry group – more a group of colleagues who are also friends. There is little formality between us, and we trust one another. It works for us.

——————————

I understand that this isn’t for everybody. For some, it probably sounds like hell on earth. But if it might work for you, let me know how you go. I’d love to hear what works for you.

]]>https://researchwhisperer.org/2019/04/23/personal-industry-group/feed/4jod999A group of World of Warcraft avatars, of vastly different races and classes, united by their love of libraries. The gendered impacts of funding Australia’s researchhttps://researchwhisperer.org/2019/04/16/gendered-funding/
https://researchwhisperer.org/2019/04/16/gendered-funding/#commentsMon, 15 Apr 2019 22:00:19 +0000http://theresearchwhisperer.wordpress.com/?p=9258

Her passion lies at the interface of industry and academia where innovation thrives. So, it was a natural next step to include the role of ‘pracademic’ in her career portfolio. In this, she combines her consulting expertise with part-time lecturing/tutoring and research at Swinburne University. Her PhD is in Economic Sociology, with research interests in gender, work and organisations. She can be contacted via LinkedIn.

I have a bee in my bonnet about the impact of grant funding on women’s research careers so, last year, I made a submission to the Senate Inquiry into Funding Australia’s Research.

Although gender equity was not the main focus of the Inquiry, it is a crucial issue for productivity in research, hence several submissions raised it. The submission from the Australian Academy of Science EMCR Forum, for example, highlighted the significant disadvantages to women and minorities in the competitive funding process due to systemic biases and poor evaluation of track record relative to opportunity.

On reading the final report (722 Kb PDF), it was apparent that most of the Inquiry submissions as well as the Committee’s recommendations were focused on iterative changes to the current system, not a complete overhaul. However, based on my PhD research (2010 – 2015) into gender dynamics in biotech organisations (2.27 Mb PDF), I believe a tweaking of the current funding system will have only minimal impact on the outcomes for women in research and, consequently, on research productivity. My research was specific to science but I expect is equally relevant to the humanities and other areas.

I compared the career outcomes of women and men in biotechnology. A major finding was that women are more likely to become managers in commercial biotech firms than in public research organisations and, when they do, they hold management roles with relatively similar responsibilities and pay to men. In contrast, in public research organisations such as universities and research institutes, women who become managers tend to congregate in lower level management positions.

According to my research participants, one reason for this poor gender equity outcome in public research is the system of grant funding.

Essentially, the system determines: a) how productivity is defined; and b) how work is organised. These two factors generally disadvantage anyone with responsibilities outside of work, with women disproportionately penalised as they are the great majority who continue to shoulder more responsibility for family care.

Grants and productivity

In public research institutions, staff promotions are often directly linked to grants. But when ‘the system’ drives decisions about who gets promoted, publications are recognised disproportionately above any other measure of a researcher’s productivity. This time-based assessment of productivity often disadvantages anyone who has responsibilities outside work or takes time out for family care. While there is some consideration of the impact of career breaks on track record, this is difficult to assess and relies on the discretion of reviewers. This begs the question, ‘How many papers is a baby worth?’ (125 Kb PDF).

Meanwhile, other avenues for career progression are very limited in public sector research. For example, teamwork, communication and management skills are paid scant attention in the competitive grants system. These skills are considered integral to productivity in commercial biotech and provide a pathway into management. In public research, however, the preoccupation with publications means that team contributions are often overlooked and team leadership potential goes unrealised.

“You could actually make someone else’s project much more productive because you’ve spent the time counselling the junior staff, sorting out the lab problems, making sure that people actually get on together, drawing new collaborations together between people who never would have thought they could work together before. I mean, this all rings true, right? Women around me do this very well but they’re not going to get official [grant] recognition if they’re renowned for that.”

– Senior Research Manager, Public Research Organisation

Grants and the way work is organised

Shared work arrangements and support from colleagues can alleviate the pressure on individuals during peak work periods, and are especially helpful to anyone combining work and family or other responsibilities. However, this can be difficult to organise in a competitive grant-driven environment.

With grants tied to individual researchers and specific projects, public research organisations have limited funds or flexibility to manage the institution holistically. For example, there is limited scope to coordinate the movement of staff into high priority projects according to the demands of the work; spread the workload more evenly; employ additional staff to assist with peak loads; create part-time roles; and cover staff absences or career breaks. By contrast, these organisational strategies are commonly used in commercial biotech to optimise productivity, meet deadlines and share the load across the whole team.

Job insecurity

Appointment, tenure and promotion are directly linked to grants in many public research organisations, creating high levels of job insecurity. This is further compounded by the low success rate for grant applications. My research shows the proportion of managers on term appointments in the Victorian public biotech sector (56 percent) is significantly higher than the proportion on term appointments in Victorian biotech firms (20.5 percent). And, within the public sector, the proportion of managers on terms is higher in research institutes (62 percent) where there is a greater reliance on grants, than in universities (38 percent).

Furthermore, this job insecurity is personalised. With grants awarded to individuals or teams led by a Chief Investigator (CI), those individuals can be under extreme pressure to win further grant funding to employ their team. Even though they work in large organisations, they face similar pressures to the self-employed or small business owners.

“There’s a degree of constancy required in academia. You’re the person on a contract, you’re responsible for getting the contracts, you’ve got all these people working for you and you can give them no certainty or anything. It would be tough.”

– CEO, Biotech Firm

Long hours and no breaks

The administrative load and constant pressure created by the grants system drives long hours in public sector research, and those with family or other outside responsibilities feel the impact the most. While researchers generally accept the need for long hours in an internationally competitive race for discovery, many feel ‘burnt out’ from this additional load. For some, it’s the last straw and drives them from the sector.

“If only they could change the grants system so there is a lesser requirement to apply, at least less often, so I can have time to be creative without thinking do I need to write another grant.”

– Senior Research Manager, Public Research Organisation

The normal career path in scientific research continues to be linear, continuous and full-time. Despite policies to the contrary, there is a strong perception that career breaks or part-time work are not feasible at senior levels. High-achieving women and men focused on productivity are sensitive to these perceptions and therefore limit their parental or other leave to protect their careers, and are reluctant to take up part-time arrangements. In contrast, in biotech, part-time work is normalised for both men and women, including at the management level.

Is there a better way to fund research?

Although dissatisfaction with ‘the system’ is rife, it is generally assumed that competitive grants are the best way to allocate research funding. Perhaps this is because scientists are socialised to believe in competition from their early career training and they have become inured to this way of working.

However, it seems counterproductive to rely so heavily on a relatively small number of elite scientists and risk burning them out, while other talented researchers fall by the wayside. The unreasonable workload, job insecurity and narrow view of productivity associated with grant funding leads to the under-utilisation of highly qualified researchers.

To facilitate real change, I believe Australia should move away from a centralised grants system focused on individual scientists and toward block funding of whole institutions. This could still be competitive and based on organisational performance but would provide research organisations the autonomy and flexibility to manage work in a way that provides opportunity for everyone to contribute to their best ability. Team leadership potential could be assessed at the local level and the appointment and promotion of scientists and team leaders ‘decoupled’ from the award of grants.

This is a ‘shared risk’ model where both organisations and individuals shoulder responsibility for scientific productivity, rather than leaving individual scientists to shoulder all the risks as de facto self-employed contractors constantly reapplying for funding.

From a public accountability perspective, I argue this model would make individual research institutes more accountable for effective management of their workforce, help address the under-representation of women at senior levels, and thereby capitalise on the public investment in education.

Indeed, public research organisations could learn some lessons from the commercial biotech sector on what works for women.

Looking for another role be an exciting and/or daunting state. It could mean that you’re finishing your PhD, coming to the end of your contract (still waiting to hear if your contract is renewed…), or wanting to move on from where you are. There is work to do, however, before you are actually on that market. It is important work that needs to be started before you’re looking.

Let me start with two examples of what I mean:

I was sitting next to a fabulous, proactive PhD researcher at ‘Shut up and write’ recently – let’s call her Nikeisha because that’s her name. Nikeisha was talking about the various things she’d done to position herself well and boost her chances of finding a position after completing the doctorate. These things included having her CV with her at a big conference where she had a poster and could immediately hand it over to interested lab heads or recruiting colleagues, applying to be part of an internship program (post-thesis submission) and specifying exactly the organisation they want to work in, and having a succinct and effective website. She’s a molecular biologist who worked with squid slime so I’m assuming she’ll get a role in no time – who could resist such a thing?

I was cold-called by a PhD researcher who was almost submitting his thesis. Let’s call him Wade. I agreed to meet with Wade because a good friend had suggested me to him and he had flagged this in his email, as well as giving me the context of why he and my friend thought I’d be useful to talk to. While I may have still met him without the friend’s recommendation, I would not have approached the meeting with the same predisposed-to-like-him manner. In addition, he was very clear about why he wanted to meet with me and introduced himself via a courteous email and very slick and professional CV. Overall, I was dead impressed with Wade’s forthright approach, his clarity about his job-search context, and his considerate manner. He’s now a colleague of mine at the same institution.

The critical thread through Nikeisha’s and Wade’s pre-job search activities is that of positioning themselves to be seen. This is most important before you are actually on the market as, once you have to start applying around, the task of standing out in a stack of applications is that much harder.

There’s a lot of advice about what to do when you’re a researcher looking for work, and it can be a difficult phase to be in, particularly if you’re wanting to change sectors or types of roles. I should make clear here that this is not a ‘how to job-hunt’ post with intricate strategies for the complex processes of academic hiring – that would be a whole shelf of books unto itself!

This post is based on my own experiences and reading, and those shared with me through various channels (including a direct call-out for tips to my buddies, some of whom preferred to remain anonymous).

The short list below are the key things that researchers do when they are on the market for a new role. Many of them are common to all job-seekers but there are a few particular researcher inflections. If you already do these things, then you can feel assured that a strong basic strategy is in place. None of these things guarantees a job, of course, but having them in place means that you’re not missing out on opportunities or making potential employers work to find out about you and the fab things you have done/are doing.

Freshen up that digital face

This is a fairly standard thing to point to these days, and it’s a cliche because it’s true!

Many organisations do a digital scan of potential interviewees before short-listing to ensure that nothing is concerning on that front. There’s a fair amount of scaremongering about losing opportunities because of ill-considered social media updates, but what is not often mentioned is that just about as many people get onto the short-list because of positive things that are found about them (CareerBuilder survey, 2017). Building a strong digital profile can’t be done overnight so it’s helpful to develop it before you actually need to lean on it (as with any network!). There’s plenty out there on how to develop your social media profile – my ‘Digital Academic‘ module has quite a few links that might be worthwhile investigating.

Anitra Nottingham, who recently landed a new position, is a big fan of LinkedIn and advises:

LinkedIn is an amazing tool. Solicit references on LinkedIn, and pay it forward by handing out references out to others. Tweak your description so that you are endorsed for the right things and appear in the right searches and get the right job recommendations – I found it better than [other major job-seeking platforms]. Redo your website to make it as quick and easy to access your work as possible.

Aim to build a supportive network

All job searches are stressful, and when they stretch out a bit or you are getting more misses than hits, it can really send you into a negative spiral. It’s hard to maintain optimism when you are regularly being dismissed as being not quite good enough or – worse – not even in the running. My fellow research education and development colleague, Jamie Burford, had this great observation and advice:

Job searches can be a really lonely journey involving rejection and prompting questions about how awesome you are. So I reckon it is good to let your personal/professional cheer squad know you are applying for things, and let them know when things don’t come out the way you might have hoped. I reckon keeping your people in the loop really helps.

Get yourself out and about

As the anecdotes I shared at the beginning of this post demonstrate, getting yourself out there and letting people know you will be available for roles soon is an important step in the pre-job hunting phase. It can be hard to do if you’re not usually the kind of person who puts yourself out there and talks about what you want. Having clarity about what you are actually looking for, though, can cut through a whole lot of angst around this. What you are asking of people is often not a lot. Think about what Wade approached me with: to have a chat about the sector, ask questions about opportunities, and finding out more about what would position him well. He was not asking for a job (don’t ask for a job). What you want to do is make a fab impression and have people want to help you if opportunities arise.

Just think about this: If you activate your advocates to be job-hunting on your behalf, that’s a much bigger net you’re casting.

]]>https://researchwhisperer.org/2019/04/09/being-seen/feed/7tseenPhoto by Aaron Burden | unsplash.comKids in bidshttps://researchwhisperer.org/2019/04/02/kids-in-bids/
https://researchwhisperer.org/2019/04/02/kids-in-bids/#commentsMon, 01 Apr 2019 21:00:46 +0000http://theresearchwhisperer.wordpress.com/?p=9219This article first appeared in Funding Insight on 7 March 2019 as ‘Let’s talk about the kids’. It is reproduced with the permission of Research Professional. For more articles like this, visit www.researchprofessional.com.

Clara Campoamor (detail) by Anna Jonsson, in Seville, 2007

Before I begin, I need to make it clear that I have no children.

As such, I apologise if some of what I say about families and research is a little off-kilter. This post stands in stark contrast to Sarah Haye’s beautiful piece, ‘How having kids made me a better academic‘. Think of me as the stereotypical reviewer of your research funding bids – an older male, with no kids in sight.

Recently, I read a grant application where the applicant had written:

“I am a mother of two small children (ages 5 and 8) and therefore for this period there was little time for research.”

There has been a strong movement over the last ten years to acknowledge the impact that being primary carer has on research careers. Many granting bodies now make allowance for the impact of raising a family, which is wonderful and long overdue. It is a step towards fairness and equality, and it recognises that researchers are people.

However, we don’t often talk about people in funding bids.

When we write research applications, we often shift into a depersonalised space, where the focus is on the ideas. When we talk about people at all, we speak formally: “CI Needs-Grant will take responsibility for…” and “PI Wants-Funding is a recognised expert…”.

For the most part, these conventions abstract us from our personal situation. I don’t think that is always a good thing, but it is the convention. Also, we describe a fantasy land of Full Time Equivalent workloads and balanced budgets, knowing full well that much of the work will be done out of hours, as self-funded overtime that takes us away from our families. We talk about research partners and research assistants in purely abstract terms, stripping away any indication that they are also friends and valued colleagues, who might be depending on this grant to save their job.

We shouldn’t do that when we talk about our families. They are special and shouldn’t ever be abstracted away.

Talking about kids breaks the conventional focus on ideas, because kids aren’t abstract. They aren’t ideas. They are messy and unpredictable and rewarding and sometimes troublesome (much like research, I guess). No wonder it can sometimes be difficult to incorporate the intensely personal (your family) with the detached (your ideas).

I feel that there should be a better way to talk about families in funding bids. I don’t like the idea of blaming the kids for career interruption or slowdown. It doesn’t feel right. Most of the academic parents that I’ve met have loved their kids, loved being with them, and loved the wonder that they bring into their lives. So, the very first edit of the sentence above might be to decouple these two ideas.

“I am a mother of two small children (ages 5 and 8). For this period there was little time for research.”

That feels better (less blame, more forthright), but it still doesn’t feel quite right. Part of this is the clash of the personal (ages 5 & 8) with the detached (little time for research). One approach might be to dehumanise even more – take out any reference to ages, so that the children become cyphers. I’m not a fan of that idea.

I think that it might be time to inject some personality (and honesty) into the bid. When I was critiquing this application, I wrote back to the author and said “I have no idea what your relationship is with your kids, but you might think about this example, and how it resonates with you.”

“I have two small children (aged 5 & 8) whom I adore. While they have opened up a world of new possibilities for me, they have also had an effect on my research output. They have brought a renewed focus and resonance to my work, and made it clear how important it is for the future. They have also slowed my rate of publications. Slower, but richer.”

If you wish, you could then go on to quantify that difference, by comparing your publication rate, and the quality of your publications, before you had kids and after. This feeds into a managerialist mentality of counting research papers as if they were factory widgets, but that may be what is needed in some situations.

You might also want to talk about the fact that you are travelling less than researchers without family responsibilities, which limits the conferences that you can attend.

“While I have often been contributing to conference papers, I do not generally present them, as conference travel with small children seems unfair on both them and me. While this has constrained my ability to network with and, at times, work in situ with international colleagues, it has not prevented me from collaborating with significant people in the field, such as…”

Most of the academic parents that I have met are extremely organised. They are often doing extraordinary work on part-time employment, and trying extremely hard to corral their work life into their work hours, so that they have time for kids and family.

I’ve seen people talk about the organisational skills that they apply to their families as they would a small business or a large project. They talk about the size of the family budget that they are responsible for, and the way that they manage multiple overlapping requirements and timelines.

I like this idea, but it feels like it is still taking the concept of the family and squeezing it into a paradigm that doesn’t quite fit. I haven’t yet figured out a good way to talk about this that doesn’t make your family sound like a cog in the military-industrial complex. Let me know what works for you.

The important thing is to make it clear that you believe that, while you might have less time for research, and therefore fewer publications and conferences, the quality of your work has not decreased. Perhaps something like this:

“Even though I have less time for my research, I feel that the work that I am doing now is some of my best. I am more selective about what projects I undertake, who I work with and which papers I write. This selectivity acts like a sieve, clarifying my work and making it more fulfilling.”

As I said at the start, I don’t have kids, so I’m really just riffing off some of the best things that I’ve read over the years, and the conversations that I’ve had with researchers with families.

However you write it, you need to write what is true for you, in a way that the reader will understand. It may be that none of the ‘spin’ that I’ve delivered here rings true for you. Your family may be a constant distraction from your research, and you don’t feel that they’ve made you a better researcher at all. If that is the case, find a way to write that. But also consider that you love your kids, and would do almost anything for them. So, you need to find a way to express all that clearly, truthfully, and without turning your kids into scapegoats or excuses. In the end, you need to be comfortable with your application.

On the other hand, if there is the germ of something here that might be useful, please feel free to explore it and make it your own. The fact that funding agencies are recognising the importance of families gives us licence to bring more of our ourselves into our (all too impersonal) bids, and we should grab that opportunity and run with it. Joyously, like a little kid.

]]>https://researchwhisperer.org/2019/04/02/kids-in-bids/feed/4jod999An statue of Clara Campoamor as a little girl, sitting on books and reading a big book with her name on it. Which academics are happy?https://researchwhisperer.org/2019/03/26/which-academics-are-happy/
https://researchwhisperer.org/2019/03/26/which-academics-are-happy/#commentsMon, 25 Mar 2019 21:00:59 +0000http://theresearchwhisperer.wordpress.com/?p=9237Lachlan Smith is Co-Director of Cloud Chamber.

He supports small and specialist institutions to develop their research culture, environment and income through strategy development and one to one research proposal support for academics. Clients include Newman, Leeds Trinity and Harper Adams Universities. He previously worked in research development at the University of Warwick as well as roles in the civil service, local government and economic development consultancy.

Lachlan is currently undertaking a part-time PhD at the School of Business, University of Leicester. He tweets from @HEresearchfund.

Academics everywhere are under increasing pressure to improve their performance and that of their institution, often by undertaking tasks that respond directly to new forms of measurement and management within the sector.

League tables now exist for every imaginable university degree, region and specialism and the plethora of tables continue to grow.

Over the last eight years, since I started working closely with academics, the number of metrics has only continued to expand, prompting the question from an academic I know well: “Which academics are actually happy in English higher education today?”

The question took me by surprise. I had never been asked this question so directly before.

This academic had recently taken the plunge and resigned from her academic role in England and taken up opportunities in South-East Asia. Part of the driver for this was unhappiness with the English higher education sector, including heavy (and often unrealistic) teaching loads, burdensome administration and a lack of support from senior management, coupled with the introduction of more metrics into the everyday life of academics. These include the Research Excellence Framework (REF), Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) and the associated National Student Survey (NSS). And, of course, there is the newly emerging Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF), as well as a reduction in student fees potentially on the horizon to complicate the policy and organisational landscape further.

It is a pretty exhausting mix for anyone, and that’s just thinking about it, let alone doing any of this. How, for example, do people manage to do research – that key underpinning platform of universities?

In my work at Cloud Chamber, I have been lucky to work with academics across a range of institutions, mainly but not exclusively in England. I am talking in this post about academic staff with some security in their roles.

At a quick count, I’ve worked directly with or had contact with more than 200 academics in over 35 institutions. The focus of this work has been in research development and evaluation. As such, the majority of academics we work with are active researchers or are interested in conducting research. They all keenly look at the different impacts on academic life. All of this experience and contact with a range of academics across such vast and varied institutions does highlight some consistent themes to that question of happiness.

Perhaps it is easier to define who is unhappy and why that is the case? In my experience, those who have become jaded, are looking for a way out, need a change or need to recharge their batteries are doing more administrative and management tasks than they would like. Often, this merges into teaching as well although I think most academics do enjoy the act of teaching; it tends to be the administrative burden and sometimes excessive class sizes and associated marking commitments that wear people down.

The continued growth of metrics and measurement through initiatives like the REF, TEF, and the NSS, make an impact on academics, especially as the schemes sit uncomfortably in the background as they go about their daily teaching and research activities. But it can be more than that. For those with specific responsibilities to promote, implement or measure the results of these initiatives, the burden can be very high, cutting deeply into cherished research, teaching or even free time. This has only got worse in the last eight years, and I expect that this impact is mirrored globally.

However, it isn’t simply about these initiatives. Time and energy-sapping burdens can come from more traditional academic roles that may include director or deputy director roles for studies, sitting on departmental committees and leading teaching and learning roles. The rotation of these roles among academics is standard practice, but it can be easy for many years to have slipped by and for academics to find themselves continuing in these roles. These are demanding positions and continuing them for too long can lead to burn-out. The growth in metrics over the last eight years has only compounded the problem, in my experience, with more and more academics feeling jaded and looking for a way out.

So, what does all this administration, measurement and committee working prevent academics from doing? The short answer is research.

Research is normally the first thing to fall by the wayside as universities focus more and more on student satisfaction while failing to see the clear link between good research and quality teaching. Research is what often fires an academic up. It is something that they want to talk about, even if only remembering the research they used to do, perhaps their PhD or early career research.

The academics who are happiest in their work may do some teaching (many enjoy the teaching) but, most importantly, they have the time to do research, explore the questions that mean the most to them, and to feel like they are making a real difference.

If your research fires you up, then make sure you protect your research time as much as you possibly can. That would be my number one piece of advice to academics in higher education today. Fight for it and don’t be afraid to say no to people if they want to eat into your research time. Nobody will protect it for you.

Protecting this time isn’t always easy but academia, like any career, can be long and challenging so protecting the things you enjoy, your passions and interests are crucial to avoiding burn-out and ensuring an enjoyable and rewarding career.

]]>https://researchwhisperer.org/2019/03/26/which-academics-are-happy/feed/1researchwhisperImage by rromer on flickr | Shared via CC BY-NC-SA 2.0How having kids made me a better academichttps://researchwhisperer.org/2019/03/19/better-academic-with-kids/
https://researchwhisperer.org/2019/03/19/better-academic-with-kids/#commentsMon, 18 Mar 2019 21:00:56 +0000http://theresearchwhisperer.wordpress.com/?p=9201Sarah Hayes is an urban archaeologist and material culture researcher who focuses on the role possessions play in quality of life and social mobility. Her current research traces the material life trajectories of individuals and families during Victoria’s gold rush.

She is a current holder of a Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) and Senior Research Fellow at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University.

I suffered a serious lack of academic mojo when I came back to work after maternity leave for my second daughter.

I’d had to start her in childcare two months before my maternity leave ended so we wouldn’t miss out on a spot and, as is inevitable when a small kid starts childcare, she was constantly sick for about four months. Throw in her asthma, and you can imagine what a stressful time it was. The snowballing of head colds meant she weaned herself overnight at ten months (it might sound silly, but this was to be my last baby and the sudden loss of that closeness with her hit me hard). Though she had been a good sleeper, all the illness meant I was back to an average of three hours’ sleep a night.

The demands of modern academia are complex and at times frustrating. I found myself heartily questioning the purpose of my research and whether I wanted to be an academic. Archaeology wasn’t going to save any lives, so why exactly was I putting my daughter through all this childcare-induced illness?

This was three years ago now, but I clearly remember sitting on the couch at home with a notebook, a few favourite books by favourite authors at my side, and trying to find my why as a parent and an academic.

In that session, it became burningly clear that my current approach to my job wasn’t working for me. Up to this point, I had been trying to tick all the academic boxes, follow the lead of senior colleagues and produce the kind of work that was expected of me in my discipline. There was no creativity and not much joy in it, but plenty of second-guessing of myself and feeling inferior to colleagues.

As I thumbed through my favourite books, I found this passage by historian and anthropologist Inga Clendinnen:

‘I had begun to write, or to try to, as my children grew older and because I knew that I should, but at first I had been paralysed because I could only imagine my potential audience as a handful of scowling academics. Then suddenly I began to write quite tough, specialist history, deciphering documents, reconstructing episodes, with no anxiety about audience at all… I would not take it as my duty to rehearse the historiography, or to advance the particular discussions dominating the fields at the time… Instead I would write in the hope of seducing an intelligent, non-specialist audience… into thinking about the issues that I cared most about…’ – Inga Clendinnen Agamemnon’s Kiss p.22-23.

Permission

This quote from Clendinnen gave me permission. Permission to determine what my own priorities were, and to critically question the value and contribution of my discipline and research. Perhaps, more importantly, it gave me permission to think about what I might like to do or achieve with my work, and what I wasn’t willing to do.

The precarity of academic work is a constant mindf**k. It fuels self-doubt, imposter syndrome and fear for your future – especially if you have carer responsibilities.

This is where I had choices to make. Were there things I wanted to do in academia that I couldn’t do elsewhere? I’ve worked in a butcher shop, insurance agency, bookstore, on fringe and film festivals, and in public service. But I left all those things to pursue academia and there are very good reasons for that choice. While academia isn’t all rosy and there are systemic challenges, it’s a hell of a lot more fulfilling and rewarding than stuffing envelopes at that insurance agency, it’s less frustrating than the bureaucracy of the public service and much less messy than the butcher.

It was a very good thing to stop at this moment and actively make the choice to stay, not just stick around because I felt I had no other choice.

What did I do next? I wrote a list.

Priorities

I had a career plan as part of my performance plan. Inspired by this, I sat down and wrote out a ‘Top 5’ priorities list for staying in academia that was all about me. Not performance or outputs or impact. It was written just for me, not for my supervisor or the institution’s performance plan.

It looked like this:

Be available for my kids.

Improve my writing/communication skills. As a craft.

Work out the point and value of my discipline beyond the academy.

Think deeply about what I can uniquely contribute to society and culture, not just the discipline.

Support others, be a good academic citizen, work to improve academia, rather than leave it.

Looking at this again three years on, I wouldn’t change the list and am still working on all these things.

Now that my kids are bigger and we are out of the baby phase I allow myself to tilt: a more realistic alternative to achieving work/life balance. Balance can often add oppressive layers of stress when trying to manage everything perfectly every day. Tilting acknowledges that there will be times when carer responsibilities will demand more attention and other times where you need focus intensively on work for a while. Perhaps balance will be achieved over the course of a year, but rarely on a given day or week, and that’s OK. In fact, it’s far less stressful.

I cannot tell you how much difference it has made to have those priorities written down. I refer to them constantly. If a phone call came in from my child’s childcare centre mid-meeting, I could refer back to the number one item on that list, make the decision to leave and dash to childcare and suffer far less anxiety around the decision. Surely, people would understand? And, if they didn’t, that wasn’t a reflection of my work ethic or dedication. If a request came in to give a talk or write something, I could refer to my priorities and make my decision based on whether it aligned with one of my priorities, whereas before I would have just said ‘yes’.

Benefits

There are challenges to mixing academia with kids: conference travel, the difficulty of taking on a teaching role when you are the primary carer, the fog of sleep deprivation, leaving your brilliant flow to make the mad dash to childcare before closing time, not being able to attend academic events outside of office hours, the countless cancelled meetings, etc.

However, I can see some very real benefits to my academic life post-children.

Knowing that my kids are my number one priority has oddly given me the confidence to go beyond fulfilling what I’m told to do and ticking off expected tasks, to backing my own judgement and intuition instead. If I’m not spending my days with my girls then I’m sure as hell going to make what I do at work count as much as I possibly can. I focus much more now on the process and my contribution and I am more willing to take risks (such as apply for an award, seek out new mentors, or apply for a new job).

Then there’s efficiency: when I was doing my PhD, it would take me three hours of reading, responding to emails and pfaffing around before I would start writing. Now, I’m at my desk at 8am and writing by 8.05am. One hour is a completely different period of time.

If I hadn’t had kids I don’t know that I would have stopped, taken stock and questioned what I was doing so deeply. Without that stressful time returning to work after my second, I don’t think I would have had the guts to call some of my own shots and decide my own priorities. It’s a much better head space now.

Whether you have kids, or are a carer, or even if you don’t and aren’t, I would highly recommend stopping, taking stock and figuring out your why.